


Dark Wings, Darker Words, Darkest Deeds

by LibKat



Series: Season 8 Spitefics and Fixits [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: All canon character deaths are included, Alternate explanation for show canon, F/M, Spitefic, not a fixit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibKat/pseuds/LibKat
Summary: Everything went according to plan.





	Dark Wings, Darker Words, Darkest Deeds

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the last of my spite fics.  Not because I am any less enraged by season 8.  I’ll probably still be bitching about it on my deathbed.  But the JB fandom has been so energized by trying to make right what D&D put wrong and so many new and returning writers are appearing on AO3, I want to get back to my multi-chapter WIPs and new ideas for stories.
> 
> After I got over my initial reaction to who wound up King at the end of GOT - “Bran?  Freakin’ useless BRAN?!!!!!! No way!” - I thought this story might be something like what Dumbass and Douchebag were trying, in their supremely inept way, to hint at.
> 
> Disclaimer:  Game of Thrones and these characters belong to a whole bunch of people who are not me and didn’t deserve to be their stewards.  I will return them less damaged than the showrunners have left them when I am finished playing with them.

Dark Wings, Darker Words, Darkest Deeds

 

 

 It was falling into place.  The important pieces were nearly gathered.  The board was set.  Now, all that mattered was for the final game to commence.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven watched Samwell Tarly stumble across the courtyard toward him.  This was the first move of the final gambit.  It had to be Sam and it had to be this particular moment, just after he learned what Daenerys had done to his father and brother.  That would echo for Jon.  The North remembered what had happened to another father and brother at the hands of a Targaryen.  The seeds of doubt had to be sown.  And then they would be tended, nurtured until they had grown too large to be ignored.

The Three-Eyed Raven regretted that so many would have to die, but in the vast ocean of history, they were but a drop of water.

The form that had once belonged to Brandon Stark observed the encounter between the two friends.  The raven roosting in the rafters of the crypt went unnoticed by Jon and Sam, though neither of them would have had the least suspicion even if they had seen the black bird in the shadows.  He was still Bran Stark to his cousin, the innocent, mischievous boy left broken and unconscious on the day Jon went to the Wall.  Jon had no frame of reference to understand what that boy was now.  No ability to comprehend the great work Brandon Stark had given his life over to.

The querulous voice came from the far corner of the Three-Eyed Raven’s mind.  The boy still had one obsession left.

“Yes, Bran.  I know.  He is coming.  He’ll be here by mid-morning tomorrow.  Yes, I remember our agreement.  I will honor the terms.  I never break a bargain.”  The Three-Eyed Raven soothed the boy’s agitation.  Bran had been the best option available.  The youngest Stark boy had been too wild, the oldest son, the uncle, and the father too mired in their illusions of nobility to serve the great purpose.  The girls each had too clear a vision of their desired futures to be tempted by the gifts he offered.

And it had to be a Northerner this time, from the line of the Kings of Winter.  The Blood Raven had been a talented man, but his Valyrian and Riverlands heritage had lacked the power to make right all that had gone wrong so long ago.

The boy’s obsession served a purpose.  The man had a part to play as well.  There was a need for powerful pieces on the board.  And he was, after all, a knight.

***

Jaime Lannister froze when Brandon Stark’s voice quoted his words back to him in the great hall. 

“The things I do for love.” 

Those words haunted Jaime’s nightmares, right alongside images of the bloodied faces of his dead children, of his father with crossbow bolts sticking out of his body, all the imagined horrors that could have befallen Brienne as she traveled the countryside protected only by the sword and armor he had given her and her unshakeable belief in doing what was right.

If Brandon Stark might choose to reveal what had really happened in that tower so long ago, Jaime needed to know.  Brienne, foolishly and heroically, had defended him before the Targaryen girl and her own sworn lady.  Jaime could not allow any consequences for his past actions to be visited upon Brienne simply because she saw him as a better man than he was.

Speaking with Brandon Stark under the branches of the eerie tree at the center of the Winterfell godswood was even more disconcerting.  Jaime believed the young man had agreed to keep his secret, but a hint of doubt remained with him.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven looked over the map table.  Jon had laid out his battle plan and, amazingly, no one had objected, though Lord Royce had opened his mouth once or twice.  Ser Jaime remained almost silent, his mind occupied by other things.  Jon’s unearned reputation, carefully encouraged with a mental nudge here or an altered memory there, had silenced the more experienced Westerosi commanders, while Daenerys and her Essosi warriors had no clue of how to defend a castle under siege in the middle of a Northern winter.

It called for only one more decisive move in this section of the great match the Three-Eyed Raven was playing.  The dragons had to be rendered, not impotent, but they had to be held tightly reined or all would come to naught.

“He’s coming for me.” 

And that was all it took to distract poor, loyal, tractable Jon from protecting the many lives of his soldiers to protecting the single life of his little brother.

After the war council, Tyrion Lannister spent what he believed had been a pleasant hour hearing the stirring story of how a crippled boy had journeyed beyond the Wall.  How he had returned to the bosom of his family with extraordinary abilities beyond the understanding of mortal men.  A mind, a will frequently clouded by excessive consumption of wine was an open door to his powers.  It took but the barest hint to send Tyrion in pursuit of his brother when the Three-Eyed Raven had finished with him.  Those brotherly bonds had to be nourished so they would hold firm in the war to come.

***

“How do you know there will be an afterward?”

Bran Stark’s voice echoed in Jaime’s mind as he looked into Brienne’s eyes.  Ser Brienne now, thanks to him.  If he had no afterward, Jaime wanted this one good deed of his to be remembered.  Brienne was the only person Jaime had raised to the knighthood in the near thirty years since Arthur Dayne had laid Dawn on his one shoulder and then the other and charged Jaime to follow the code, the code Jaime had begun betraying almost immediately in his sister’s embrace. 

The first female knight of the Seven Kingdoms.  The most worthy to bear the title in decades.  And he, Jaime Lannister, bestowed it upon her.  No matter what happened in the war to come, he had done that one good thing.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven looked at poor, sad Theon Greyjoy.  This was the best ending the weak, abused Prince of the Iron Islands could hope for.  Theon was another part of his agreement with Bran Stark.  The boy still hungered for Theon to pay for his betrayal of Robb.  Because of saving Sansa from the Bolton bastard, Bran agreed that payment could come in battle, serving the North.  Theon would die protecting the House he had betrayed and that was sufficient punishment.

“I have to go now.” 

The Three-Eyed Raven looked into Theon’s frightened but resolute eyes for a long moment and then he was flying high.  This next part would be tricky.  Much needed to be done, many influenced.  There was what had to happen and what had to be remembered as having happened.

His king and his queen were well distracted, trying to fly through the blinding gale of snow and ice, trying to protect him at great cost to their own troops. 

The rook was where he needed her to be, leading the servants of the Red God far away from the battlefield.  She would arrive just in time for things to be convincing. 

It was the illusion of his two knights that would occupy his energy.  They had to be remembered as remaining on the battlements, in the thick of the fighting.  Thankfully few of the men who fought beside them would survive to recall what happened, what they thought had happened, and what he caused them to think had happened.  Only Podrick Payne would present a real challenge out of all the pawns that the Three-Eyed Raven would use this night.

He needed his knights to play the parts assigned by their gods.  He needed their swords to take flame and end the strongest of the day’s opponents, remove those pieces from the board seemingly for all time.  But they could not be remembered as the heroes of the battle.  That would not serve his purposes at all.  It would not meet his agreement with Bran Stark.  And only with Bran Stark’s consent was the Three-Eyed Raven able to keep his foothold in this world.

Once the terms of their agreement had been met, that would no longer be an issue.  What was left of Brandon Stark would retreat into the after-life and the Three-Eyed Raven would be free to work his will upon this world unencumbered.

Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth fought their way across the courtyard, past the corpse of the wight giant.  Ser Brienne, a cry on her lips, paused a moment to dispatch the newly raised corpse of Lyanna Mormont.  Their swords, burning with an eerie silver flame made the gloom of the battlefield retract away them.  The Maiden’s chosen champion then saw that Jon, a champion of the Red God, was pinned down by the wight dragon.  With a quick glance at Jaime, a communication that said more in a single look than most people can say with a long conversation, Brienne went to Jon’s aid as fate had intended, the maiden knight becoming the dragon slayer. 

While Brienne fought the wounded Viserion, Jaime continued on, like a figure from some legend, his burning sword cutting through the dead and the white walkers as if mowing down wheat, all his lost brilliance with a blade returned to him for this single night.

A pity he would not remember it.

The Night King had reached the Three-Eyed Raven’s chair.  The fallen Iron Born and Northerners lay like broken dolls in the snow of the godswood.  The Night King looked at him long and hard.  Three-Eyed Raven sat there unmoving in his chair, as the Night King raised his icy lance to his forehead.  As his knee bent, Jaime Lannister, the champion of the Warrior raced a few last steps and struck the Night King’s head from his body.  Ice shattered everywhere and the remaining wights fell to the ground, returned once more to silent, immobile death.

The Three-Eyed Raven looked deeply into Ser Jaime’s eyes.  He breathed a single word. 

“Brienne.”

With a look of terror on his face, Ser Jaime turned and ran as though his last hope of the heavens was being torn from his life.

Arya Stark passed by him, unnoticed. 

Arya ran and clasped her brother’s form close to her.  The Three-Eyed Raven’s eyes went white and he wove through the battlefield, through every man, through every mind.

Arya stepped back from him and looked around at the fallen bodies, the shards of ice that had made up the ancient enemy of the Andals and the First Men.

“We did it,” Arya whispered.

“You did it, sister.  It was you.”

***

As the celebration went on, the Three-Eyed Raven closed his eyes.  He fixed a tiny smile to his face as though appreciating the boisterous merriment surrounding him.  In truth, he ensured that all was proceeding as was required.  A whisper brushed along her mind led to Daenerys’s blatant machination of raising the bastard blacksmith to Lord of Storm’s End.  A nudge against Tormund and soon he was loudly lauding Jon the dragon rider.  Then Daenerys departed the feast, brimming with resentment, wrapped in loneliness and her wounded vanity.

When the tension had mounted at the high table, Tyrion needed only a tiny push to desert his queen in favor of his brother, seated with Ser Brienne and Podrick.  Give Tyrion Lannister enough wine and he was sure to put his foot in it somehow.

The how went very well. 

The small voice that belonged to Bran Stark cried out loud and long.  Ser Jaime’s misery and death was their bargain.  His love for Ser Brienne was obvious to all, except the lady herself.  How would that love’s consummation meet their agreement?

“Trust me, Bran.  Did I not put the bleeding body of Theon Greyjoy at your feet?  Sometimes the misery is richer when it is spiced with happiness discarded,” the Three-Eyed Raven calmed the boy. 

Later that night, Jaime Lannister woke from a terrible nightmare of Cersei and his unborn child burning while Mad Aerys cackled.  He laid trembling for a long time, staring at Ser Brienne, wondering what she would think of his sister’s pregnancy, of him for leaving his unborn child undefended, for continuing to fuck Cersei even after the wildfire and the Sept.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven called a meeting with his “sisters” before the council meeting.  He had been cautious so far in how he used Sansa and Arya in his plans.  Bran Stark still felt some affection for the girls and would not suffer them to be overtly harmed.  But he needed the spite of one and the skill of the other to accomplish the next part of his purpose.

“Sisters,” the Three-Eyed Raven said in his lifeless voice, “now that the Great War is won, I fear what will happen when Daenerys takes our army and our brother south.”

Sansa took a moment to weigh her words.  “I know that she gave up much to come up here to fight with us.  The gods know that no one wants to see Cersei Lannister defeated more than I, but surely Daenerys will understand that we all need time to recover from the war with the dead before turning our attention to the living.  Anything else would be irresponsible.”

The Three-Eyed Raven fought to keep his lips from twitching into what passed for his smile.  This was playing out well so far.  Sansa could be brought to behave exactly as was needed.

“Whenever it is that she decides to depart, she will quickly move beyond my ability to see her.  There are no godswoods on Dragonstone.  The ones near Kings Landing are only a few feeble trees for the sake of show.  I cannot reliably see Jon once he journeys below the Neck.”

“Yet you have seen things that have taken place in other parts of Westeros, Bran.”  Arya was the more suspicious of the two sisters.

“I have seen the past, Arya.  The past is already written and seeing it is like opening a book to the correct page.  But what is happening in the present moment, much less the possible future, is fluid and hard to grasp without a conduit.”

“What would you use to see, if you could?” Arya asked.

“Bits of weirwood from our own heart tree might be enough if they were secreted in strategic places.  I could observe the Dragon Queen’s councils, her commanders.  I could keep an eye on Jon if he could only be convinced to take a piece of weirwood with him.”

Sansa’s chin rose.  “I shall convince him.  Jon needs far more looking after than he will ever admit.  He might be willing to allow his brother to do so when he would never consent to the same from me.”

Arya smiled a tight little grin.  “Get me the weirwood and I’ll make sure that enough of it goes south with Daenerys Targaryen that she won’t be able to piss without us knowing it.”

“Arya!” Sansa’s tone scolded the vulgarity but her eyes approved of their plans.

His two rooks continued to play their parts to perfection.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven counted the council meeting as a qualified success. 

To prove her leadership, her rightful destiny, Daenerys was rushing off to war with Cersei before her troops had time to recover from their last battle.  More importantly, before her dragons had time to recover.  When Sansa pointed out the folly of this strategy, Daenerys became intractable, as she might not have done had the words come from anyone else. 

The tension between Daenerys and Sansa reached a fever pitch, enough that Sansa broke her word to Jon and told Tyrion Lannister the truth of Jon’s royal heritage, removing that necessary task from the Three-Eyed Raven.  Tyrion would feel obliged to tell Varys, even without any further manipulation. 

Varys’s doubts about the Dragon Queen were almost entirely his own.

Ser Jaime staying at Winterfell rather than insisting on going south to try and salvage the life of the child he believed his sister to be carrying was unexpected.  The Three-Eyed Raven would have to amplify the disturbing dreams Ser Jaime was experiencing.

***

“No!  Gods, no!”

Jaime startled awake, his senses still filled with the remembered scent of burning flesh, stronger than the good, clean smell of the wood fire in Brienne’s, now their chamber.  He wiped the dripping sweat from his brow.

Cersei had screamed for him as Aerys burned the flesh from her bones.  He had just stood there, unmoving in his gleaming Kingsguard armor, as happened so often during the Mad King’s last days.  As the wildfire consumed her, Jaime was sure he had seen the form of their babe growing in her womb lit by the sickly green flames.

Brienne slumbered on at his side, worn out by the day’s demands of her position in Winterfell and the night’s demands of the vigorous lovemaking they had indulged in until well past the hour of the wolf.

 _Slowly in, slowly out._   Soldier’s tricks controlled his breathing, slowed his racing heart as they did before a battle.  When he was calm enough, he wrapped his arms around Brienne and took comfort from the gentle way she nestled back against him in her sleep.

These nightmares were still preferable to his other recent dreams.

Sometimes his slumber was filled with memories of Cersei, memories most evocative, powerfully sensual.  Images came of the soft, warm, salt-scented days of his youth at Casterly Rock when Cersei was the entire world to him.  The days when they were just beginning to discover the pleasures their bodies could gift to each other.  Jaime relived sight of his babes coming into the world, nursing at her beautiful breasts.  Times spent wrapped in the embrace he had traded anything, everything in the world to experience.  As he woke from those dreams, Jaime would trail his hand down Brienne’s arm and find corded muscle where his memory told him there should be soft silkiness.  When he drowsily embraced her, he found a form too tall, the shoulders too broad, the waist too wide.  The shock woke him from a place where his sleeping self desired to stay.

When he was awake, both dreams and nightmares continued to torment Jaime, made him question what he had been sure was true.  How deep was his love for Brienne?  Had he left his obsession with his sister behind?  Could he live with himself if Cersei died believing herself alone and unloved by anyone?  Was a child growing within Cersei’s womb?  Was he purchasing his present happiness at the cost of that child’s chance of life? 

Winterfell was less comfortable for him now.  The soldiers whose respect he had earned during the battle with the dead were gone south with Jon Snow, who was following his Dragon Queen like a pup too green and stupid to perceive the danger he ran towards.  Only women, children, and old people were left in the keep.  Few of them understood his actions on the ramparts.  None of them thought those actions outweighed the blame the North attached to the name Lannister.

He was followed by whispers.  The scorn of the Northerners began to fall on Brienne as well.  Lady Sansa, displeased with the lover her sworn sword had taken, did nothing to quell the unpleasant talk.  Jaime was used to being hated.  He could have tolerated it.  But he could not abide the shame he was bringing to Brienne.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven watched Ser Jaime deteriorate, while the voice of Bran Stark exulted in his mind. The moment was coming for the last blow.  But it proved unnecessary. Sansa spitefully threw the news of his sister’s imminent death at Ser Jaime’s feet.  He paled and swayed, the exhaustion of his disturbed nights showing all at once.

That night, as Jaime rode through the gates, leaving the sobbing Lady Brienne behind, no one saw the moment when his eyes flashed white.

***

The next weeks were tense in Winterfell, waiting for word from the capital.  No one noticed that “Lord Bran” was even more distracted than usual.  His long hours in the godswood were attended by Ser Brienne in Arya’s absence.  After the departure of the Kingslayer, Sansa had expressed a preference for Ser Podrick as her personal guard.  She showed very little sympathy for Ser Brienne’s ricocheting moods of anger and grief.

The Three-Eyed Raven appreciated having Ser Brienne near to him.  Her sadness kept the remnant of Bran Stark well occupied, imagining how the thought of his lover’s pain must be tormenting the Kingslayer.

***

As he traveled south, Jaime’s dreams were filled with Brienne: the smell of her hair, the touch of her calloused fingers against the stump that so repulsed his sister.  The times they had saved each other and the times they had said goodbye with love and hope in their hearts that the gods would protect them and bring them back together again one day.

When Jaime was awake, his brutal words to Brienne were beyond his understanding.  He had pondered it over and over in his mind throughout that afternoon and evening, only letting go as he made love to Brienne one final time.  He planned to wake her before he left and explain why he had to go and she had to stay.  He had to see to Cersei’s, _to the child’s_ well-being before he could be completely free to belong to another.  Cersei’s protection was his oldest oath, made as their mother was laid in the crypt at Casterly Rock.  Whatever his feelings might be now, that oath stood.  Brienne, who understood honor and duty better than any other, would have accepted those reasons.  The harsh words he had thrown at her were not the ones he had meant at all.

Each time Ser Jaime thought to turn back, his mind was flooded with images of the child he still hoped his sister bore.  Myrcella died again in his arms.  The people of Winterfell hissed their scorn for the lady knight.  Worst of all, Brienne’s broken weeping echoed in his mind, yet another horrible deed to add to his endless tally.  And his vaunted courage failed him.  He rode on southward, his connection to his sister seeming to reassert itself with every milestone he passed.

***

The winds had been fair and brought the Iron Fleet to Dragonstone just as Daenerys and her ships reached the island.  Through the shards of weirwood secreted all around her, Bran had forged a bond with Daenerys that made it had been easy to bolster the Dragon Queen’s overconfidence.  Nothing and no one yet living could stand against the might of her two children.  She burned to prove herself to Westeros.  The southerners would know her worth when she destroyed the Iron Fleet and then moved on to Kings Landing.  Without the support of Euron Greyjoy, Cersei’s city would fall in days. 

The North would never love Daenerys.  She realized that now.  The South might never love her either, but she had no cause to extend leniency to the people who served and sheltered the Baratheons and Lannisters.  The Northerners would eventually learn their lesson as well, but she needed the might of the South behind her before she was ready to face the Starks as enemies.

Daenerys fought the thoughts that the Three-Eyed Raven kept placing in her mind.  Her violent tendencies were still under some degree of control.  She still lent an ear to her advisors’ counsel.  She still desired Jon at her side and in her bed.  It was going to be necessary to fuel her anger, distrust, and loneliness. 

Losing Ser Jorah had hurt her, shaken the core of empathy that kept the fire of the Targaryens from raging out of control and consuming her sanity, as it had consumed so many of her ancestors.  The Three-Eyed Raven had worked hard to raise the hostility of the people in the North, feeding their suspicion of outsiders, the memory of what Aerys had done to the Starks.  But Daenerys’s paranoia still had not reached the boiling point.  She needed another loss.  Another tragedy was necessary, maybe even more than one.

The Three-Eyed Raven kept Daenerys distracted with her thoughts of conquest so that the approaching armada seemed like an opportunity rather than a disaster.  He warged briefly into Rhaegal to send him straight into the path of the bolts coming from the Iron Born ships.  Daenerys cried out as the second of her children fell and disappeared from her view beneath the water.

Missandei being taken was not part of his plan, but it worked out very well, driving both Daenerys and Grey Worm to the brink.  Cersei needed no prodding to behave as vilely as could be imagined, a public beheading with the former slave once again in chains.  He put the final word into Missandei’s mouth, overriding her desperate thought to wrap her chains around Cersei’s throat and jump from the battlements.  Daenerys heard cheering coming from behind the walls as if the people of Kings Landing thought Cersei to be their savior against the foreign invaders menacing their city.  The Three-Eyed Raven made sure that Daenerys did not realize the cheers were forced.  The soldiers herding the citizens through the streets with spears and whips were unseen by the Dragon Queen. 

The Three-Eyed Raven sent Varys nightmares of all the horrors he’d seen under Aerys.  The eunuch’s betrayal stoked the fires of her rage and Tyrion’s missteps fed her paranoia.  The final rejection from Jon quieted the last whispers of kindness in her heart.  Daenerys was primed to let her particular brand of madness - her belief in her right to rule not just the kingdoms but the world - consume her.  It would take a great deal to bring Jon to move against her, but mass murder of the people of Kings Landing would be enough to make even the “son” of Ned Stark turn his back on a sworn oath.

And when the Prince who was promised killed the greatest threat the kingdoms had ever seen, the prophecy of the Red God would be fulfilled, just not in the way intended.  The god’s power in Westeros, power that had been slowly growing since the Age of Heroes and Azor Ahai, would be dealt a near fatal blow as one of his champions killed the other.

Preserving Tyrion’s life took a portion of his attention.  The wreck of Daenerys’s flagship was more chaotic than the Three-Eyed Raven had planned, but he had been brought safely through it and Varys’s betrayal.  Tyrion was ready for his next act of assistance in the grand plan for Westeros. 

***

When Ser Jaime saw the towers of the Red Keep in the distance, he reconsidered his actions for the thousandth time.  Perhaps if Daenerys knew of the coming child she would allow him to try to broker peace between the two queens.  If it went badly and his sister executed him, it would only be a result that the Dragon Queen would heartily endorse. 

The Three-Eyed Raven shook his head in frustration.  He had never thought that it would be so very difficult to bring Jaime Lannister back to his sister’s side. 

He put paid to that plan by having Ser Jaime captured at the troop lines.  No one would believe he was attempting to speak openly with the commanders, to offer an alternative to all-out battle when he was dragged into Daenerys’s tent by his cloak and thrown at her feet. 

Tyrion had been as much the Three-Eyed Raven’s servant as he was Daenerys’s ever since the night before the battle for Winterfell.  Tyrion remembered a fascinating talk with a young man who had seen much that a Westerlander had never dreamed of.  In truth, he had been asleep in a quiet corner of his mind while the power of the old gods worked upon his will and set him to do their bidding. 

It took little manipulation to bring Tyrion to free his brother, to provide the assistance that he believed that Jaime would want more than anything else.  Just a whispered reminder that if Jaime had deserted Ser Brienne and the North, it could only be to preserve and protect Cersei, his true soul’s mate. 

Seeing Tyrion’s surety that Jaime might still save his sister and his unborn child quieted the doubts that had grown in Jaime’s mind and ended any vague plan of throwing himself before Daenerys to try and broker a treaty.  The clouds from Tyrion’s mind extended and wove their way through Jaime Lannister’s mind.  He belonged with his sister.  He could take Cersei and sail far away from the court that had so poisoned his twin with ambition and cruelty.  The life he had dreamed of for so long could be his, him and Cersei and their child far from Kings Landing, free to love without secrecy or restraint.

The little part of Brandon Stark that remained rejoiced in how Jaime Lannister was following the path to destruction laid out before him.

***

As all this was happening, the Three-Eyed Raven kept his eye on Ser Brienne as well.  He had understood the depth of her feelings for Lannister, but intensity of Ser Jaime’s love for her had been unexpected.  Under other circumstances, they might have lived a full and happy life together.

The Three-Eyed Raven had received nothing but kindness and consideration from Ser Brienne, even in her anguish over her lover’s desertion and Sansa’s disapproval.  He felt a distant kind of regret for what he next had to do, but his agreement with Bran Stark demanded it.

“Ser Brienne, you look unwell this morning,” the Three-Eyed Raven observed.

“It was the partridge last night, I think.  It sometimes does not agree with me.”  Ser Brienne was a stolid and solid as ever.

“It was not last night’s meal, Ser.  Your time with Ser Jaime bore fruit.”

Ser Brienne staggered for a moment before catching herself.  Before all the judgemental eyes in Winterfell, she had begun to put herself back together in the last six weeks.  Her heartbreak had not diminished, possibly never would.  But she had learned to live and go on and find purpose in her duty.  Just as the Three-Eyed Raven had intended.  He had plans for Ser Brienne in the world that he would build.

A babe had no place in them.  A Lannister babe had no place in his agreement with Bran.

“See the maester, Ser Brienne.  Confirm my words if you feel the need.  Will you choose to return to Tarth with a grandchild for your father, do you think?  Your babe could grow up happily alongside your new half-brother.”

“My new what?!” Ser Brienne cried out.

“The raven has been delayed with all the unrest and bad weather.  Your father, despairing of your safety, remarried some few months ago.  A noble widow with whom he dallied over the years and got with child.  She delivered a healthy boy just before the battle for Winterfell.  A new heir for Tarth.  Your child’s lack of a true-born name will make no difference in the succession of the Evenstar.”

The Three-Eyed Raven’s reputation for tactless declarations stood him well in this circumstance.

“Have you been able to determine anything about Ser Jaime, Lord Bran?” Ser Brienne asked tentatively.

“I have.  He will be in his sister’s arms very soon.  The attack on Kings Landing has begun.”

“He is rejoining his sister then?” Pain lanced through her voice.

“He is.  I know that you hoped that he had some other plan, Ser Brienne.  We all did.  But he has returned to her side, to live or die with her as he always wished to.  The years of entanglement with her were too much for him to overcome, even if some part of him desired to forge a different path.  One might say his devotion to her was as fatal as dependence on the milk of the poppy.”

Ser Brienne’s chin quivered for a moment and then her face firmed, her blue eyes grew cold.

“I’ll send one of the guardsmen out to stay with you, Lord Bran.  I do need to see the maester before any more time passes.”

The Three-Eyed Raven knew that Ser Brienne would never be quite the same.  A distant sadness again moved what had once been a human heart, but not enough to change his plans.  The whole of Westeros was in his hands, generations to come were his charge.  The goals of thousands of years were close to coming to fruition in the next weeks.  One woman’s soul was nothing compared to that.

***

The Three-Eyed Raven observed as Daenerys destroyed the Iron Fleet.  It would be years before the Iron Born could rape and raid along the coasts of Westeros.  Yara Greyjoy had few ships left to her and Euron had used up the Islands’ resources in building the fleet that was burning in Blackwater Bay. 

Destroying the balistas on the walls and then destroying the Golden Company only increased Daenerys’s bloodlust.  The communication between rider and dragon also built the rage in each of them in a loop than fed on itself, like a snake eating its tail.  By the time Daenerys opened the city to attack from her ground troops, both she and Drogon were at the knife’s edge of madness.

Warging into a dragon was really no different than into ravens.  It was a bit more difficult to figure out the mechanics of the massive body, but the mind of a dragon was not as complex as speculation believed.   It was thoroughly bonded to its rider.  The Three-Eyed Raven stoked the rage flowing through the link between Drogon and Daenerys even further, showing the dragon’s eye view of the people of Kings Landing.  Enemies of Drogon’s mother, traitors to Drogon’s mother.  Easy and deserving prey for Drogon and his mother.  If they destroyed those traitors no one would ever doubt the might of the Dragon Queen again, just as they had never doubted the might of Aegon the Conqueror and Balerion the Black Dread.  Daenerys would be the new Aegon and the world could be hers to form.

Daenerys was too high up for anyone to notice when Drogon’s eyes went white and when they switched back to red.

It was too bad to rain such destruction on the city and its people but there was a price to be paid and it fell to these people at this time, in this city to pay it.  The old gods demanded it.

***

Arya’s acquiescence to the advice of Sandor Clegane was unexpected.  The Three-Eyed Raven had been afraid that it would be necessary to eliminate the young assassin in order to keep Cersei alive long enough for her brother to find her.  Euron Greyjoy was barely a complication, the wounds he inflicted on Ser Jaime just another blow to the knight’s already fragile ego as well as an assurance that Ser Jaime would not be leaving the Red Keep alive.

The Three-Eyed Raven allowed the Lannister twins to have their moment of reunion.  It was nothing that would not turn bitter.  They fled through the Keep trying to regain the catacomb with the small passage to the cove.  But a particularly artful rockfall had sealed the tunnel and the Lannister twin’s fates.

As Cersei wept and cradled her stomach, Jaime thought of the girl she had been, one who never wept, of the queen she had become, strong and confident.  Only her children brought out this side of her, this vulnerability to love.  He could not save her, save their child as he had hoped.  They could only die together now, as Cersei had always said they would.  He looked deeply into her eyes and repeated the words they had told each other so often.

“Only we matter.”

And the roof came down on them.  If they had been standing just a bit to one side they would have avoided the crushing fall of brick and stone.

Cersei lay quiet, the back of her skull crushed, dead on the impact. Ser Jaime, however, had just a spark of life remaining in him.  He looked about the cavern, through the dust and falling debris as if he was trying to determine how he had come to be there.  The Three-Eyed Raven let the veil that had clouded Ser Jaime’s mind for so many weeks begin to lift.  He stepped into a narrow beam of light.

“L … Lord Bran?” the Kingslayer croaked out.

“Not really,” the Three-Eyed Raven replied.

“What are you doing here?  What am I doing here?”

“You came to save your sister and your unborn child.”

“But it’s been months since I last lay with Cersei.  She wasn’t carrying my child.  It was another of her lies.”  Jaime’s voice grew weaker and his breath rasped as he tried to bring air into his laboring lungs.  He looked at his sister’s corpse lying his arms and revulsion twisted his face.  “All of this pain and death, it was she, she and Daenerys and their mad craving for that damned throne.  Kings Landing is destroyed because of them.”

“No, Ser Jaime, everything that has happened these last years has been because of me.  And him.”

Jaime’s dimming sight tried to focus.  Lord Brandon Stark was somehow standing tall and straight in the rubble that had once been the Red Keep.  Next to him was a boy, about 10 years old, wiry, with eyes that were meant to be alight with mischief, not hatred, not rage.

“Is it done to your satisfaction, Brandon Stark?” the taller figure asked.

“It is.  You have met the terms of our bargain.  I yield to you for all time.”  The boy’s voice was the piping soprano of a child.

“Very well. Rest now.  You and your family are avenged.”

“Not quite,” the boy walked over to where Jaime Lannister lay, seeming to float over the broken stone without touching his feet to the ground.  “Remember, Ser Jaime.  Remember _Brienne_.”

The boy stayed one more moment, smiling as Jaime sobbed in realization of what he had lost and then the real Bran Stark, the boy Jaime had injured so many years ago, disappeared.

“And now that is done,” the Three-Eyed Raven looked down on Jaime Lannister’s broken form knowing that soon the rest of the section of the castle would collapse, breaking the last thread of life the knight clung to. “I was concerned that the boy would insist on going back to the day you threw him from the broken tower, Ser Jaime.  If he had, I do not know if I could have kept him from seeing the truth that his anger blinded him to.”

“The truth?”  Tears trickled from Jaime Lannister’s eyes.

“Of course.  The form I had then had grown weak with age and the timing was tricky. Keeping you from joining the hunt you had been looking forward to.  Convincing your sister that even the farthest, most deserted of the Winterfell bedchambers would not be safe for your tryst.  Making that stubborn brat defy his mother and climb the broken tower.  All to put my pieces in the correct place at the correct time to win the game of thrones.”

Jaime Lannister made a weak attempt to move, to crawl from beneath the rubble pinning him to the floor.  “I’ll kill you,” he moaned as his shattered body protested his effort.

“I’m not even here, Ser Jaime.  And you haven’t the strength even if you could reach me.”

“Why?” came the anguished whisper of the dying man.

“Ask your god when he greets you.”

“Please, you have the power to stop the battle, don’t you?  The people don’t deserve this.”

“Don’t worry about the people, Ser Jaime.  They will be my responsibility soon enough.”

***

The game was nearly finished.  Tyrion acted admirably as the Three-Eyed Raven’s advocate, convincing the stubborn, stupidly loyal Jon that Daenerys’s life had to end.  And then convincing the gathered nobles that Brandon Stark, “Bran the Broken” was the best possible choice to lead Westeros out of the troubles and terror of the last decade and bring peace and prosperity back to the lands.

For his efforts, and for his malleable consciousness, Tyrion was the best choice for Hand of the new King.  Ser Davos was a bit too suspicious after his experiences with Stannis Baratheon.  He was less easy to fool.  The position of Master of Ships that would keep him busy and happy on the sea or training sailors was an excellent choice for the Onion Knight.

It was difficult to convince the Citadel to confer Grand Maester status on Samwell Tarly, especially after King Bran decreed that maesters no longer had to comply with the strictures of celibacy.  Putting a second maester with excellent healing abilities in the Red Keep along with increasing the income that the Citadel received from the Reach and the Arbor placated the Archmaesters.  So many noble houses were stripped of heirs that turning those properties over to the Citadel meant that there would be supervision of the land and the small folk who worked it.  It was a far better solution than appointing a batch of jumped up hedge knights as lords.  Giving the sellsword Highgarden had left enough stink of back alley bargains.

Brienne of Tarth made an excellent Lord Commander of his Kingsguard, the only possible choice really.  It’s why he worked so hard to relieve her of her duties as her little island’s heir.  Once her oath was taken, she gave herself over to the service of her King.  She would never even consider that there had been more to the Great War and the Last War than the world at large knew.  She would never doubt that Bran Stark had the best interests of the people of Westeros at heart.

And in truth he did.

The wrangling between the gods had to come to an end.  This land had been stolen from the old gods by the Seven and they were close to losing it to the Red God of Essos.  If they lost, the Seven would simply move on and find another world, but the old gods were tied to the meadows, the rivers, the mountains.  There was no farther they could flee than the most remote parts of the North.  The godswoods of the Southern Kingdoms barely had enough energy to sustain the least of the old gods.  The Seven were too strong and the Red God was like a fungus covering the land where those turned to his worship.  It would be years before the Three-Eyed Raven would be able to reclaim the Southern Kingdoms for the old gods.  The remaining Children would help, but they would have to be very cautious.

Keeping the Council busy with projects for the small folk and for the military would delay the rebuilding of a great sept for years, long enough for the casual worshippers of the Seven to fall out of their habits.  Reminders of the predations of the Sparrows would also help.

King Bran had already made arrangements with his sister, the Queen in the North for a decent cutting from the Winterfell heart tree to be sent to Kings Landing as soon as the winter broke and spring began to blossom.  The place where it would grow in the Red Keep’s gardens was already being prepared by the gardeners, with secret help from the two Children who had been sent to aid him.  It would grow rapidly and be able to enhance his powers soon enough.

It would likely be several lifetimes before his work was done and the old gods ruled Westeros again.  He still needed to move with caution.  He had won the game of thrones but there were many more steps remaining on the path to his ultimate victory in the Greatest War.

***

Thirty years later…

King Brandon Stark was wheeled into his chamber by the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard.  Ser Podrick had settled nicely into the position.

Brienne had been the last of his original Small Council to go. 

With a bit of encouragement, Ser Davos, who had a keener mind than expected, decided to return to the Stormlands and act as an advisor to the floundering Gendry Baratheon.  He took with him Lord Gendry’s royally approved bride, Talla Tarly.  Though Gendry never felt for her what he had once for Arya Stark, they rubbed along well enough.  Talla had the kind heart of her one brother and the inattentive mind of the other.  She never looked too deeply at her relationship with her husband.  She was well pleased to be the Lady of a Lord Paramount and the mother of handsome black haired boys and pretty blue-eyed girls.  It had taken only a little influence to see the eldest of those boys matched to one of Sansa’s daughters.  The mingling of those bloodlines gave the oldest child of that union a special place in the consciousness of the nobles, who hoped that the strength of Baratheon and honor of Stark would be combined in him.

Ser Bronn was the next of the original Small Council to depart, from this world as well as from the council chambers.  Though time had dulled the sellsword lord’s reflexes, it had not done the same to his appetite for low taverns and loose women.  One night the Lord of Highgarden drank too much wine and made advances to the wrong woman.  Lord Tyrion mourned the loss of his erstwhile friend, far more sincerely than the high-born wife Lord Bronn left behind without an heir to inherit Highgarden from him.  Highgarden and all its wealth became the property of the Crown.

Tyrion Lannister did not long survive his friend.  The Three-Eyed Raven had known when he appointed Lord Tyrion as his Hand that the dwarf’s heart would soon give way under the strain of ruling.  As the Three-Eyed Raven had pledged to Brandon Stark, Tyrion died without children and the line of Tywin Lannister ended with him.  Casterly Rock remained empty and desolate above its depleted gold mines, no one wanting to take responsibility for the vast estate without the funds or resources for its upkeep.

Samwell Tarly’s retirement to the Citadel had come after tragedy struck his little family.  If the Three-Eyed Raven could feel regret, he would regret that.  His desire to block the importation of priests of the Red God and servants of the Seven had required oversight of ship traffic from Essos.  The outbreak of plague, a sickness brought to the shores of Westeros by a ship from Lys, had been just the excuse that the Three-Eyed Raven needed to enforce tougher strictures on goods and peoples coming into the Six Kingdoms.  That the disease had proved more virulent than expected and had taken Samwell’s lady and sons had been an unfortunate consequence of the plan.  Samwell had remained in Kings Landing only long enough to have a new Grand Maester appointed and then he returned to the Citadel to take up his education once more.  Sam never got over the thought that if he’d been a fully trained maester, he might have prevented the deaths of his family.

Ser Brienne had remained at his side decades longer than the others.  She became as close to a confidant as the Three-Eyed Raven had ever allowed himself.  Every once in a while, he would see an expression cross her face, a hint of unease with some plan of his, some comment made without thought.  But never did she pull all the various threads together to see the tapestry as a whole. 

Ser Brienne had always abhorred needlework.

She had passed from this world fifteen months before from a cancer of her womanly parts, parts she had done her best to ignore after Jaime Lannister rode south and a visit to Maester Wolkan ended any chance of their child being brought to term. 

If the Three-Eyed Raven was a follower of the Seven he might think that the Mother had taken her wrath out on Brienne, poisoning the womb that had shed the last Lannister child, the child created in the joining of the champions of the Warrior and the Maiden.  But the Mother did not work that way.  Of all the Seven, she was the one who cared for the world as the old gods did.

Podrick has been the logical choice to replace his mentor and long-time friend as Lord Commander.  He was as solid a man as he had been a boy.  Not a deep thinker, never had even a hint of suspicion crossed his face.  He was utterly reliable in his devotion to his King.

When they arrived in the royal chambers, the Lord Commander poured his King a cup of wine mixed with herbs that helped him deal with the pains of Brandon Stark’s deteriorating body.  This body would not live much past three score years.  It would be necessary to bring the child of Stark and Baratheon to court earlier than planned.  It might even be necessary to allow Gendry or his eldest son to spend a few years as King until the boy’s form grew old enough to be accepted by the nobles of Westeros as their ruler.  But the boy only had to reach his fourteenth year before he could be taken as the new vessel of the Three-Eyed Raven.  And work had already begun to bring that about.  The child had strange and fantastical dreams of flying high above the clouds, of sharing the body of his favorite hound as he loped along the high cliffs around Storm’s End.  Soon a voice would accompany those dreams until it was too tempting to resist.  The Three-Eyed Raven had tempted many a man and boy in the same manner for thousands of years.

The Three-Eyed Raven felt a sluggishness in his mind that was unlike the usual effects of the herbs.  He looked over at his Lord Commander and was surprised by an expression that he had never before seen there.  It was contempt.  It was hatred.

“What have you done, Ser Podrick?”  Speaking was a great effort.

“You will not be able to continue your plans, Three-Eyed Raven.  Soon you will not continue anything at all.”

“How?” the Three-Eyed Raven gasped as all his senses began to shut down.  He was too far from the young heart tree to claim strength from it.  He had never had any weirwood placed in his chambers for fear of raising suspicions at first.  And then he had grown lax and comfortable in his supremacy.

“There has been muttering for a long time.  Fears that you were trying to move the Kingdoms towards the worship of the old gods.  Thirty years of rebuilding, yet there has not been a single new sept raised in Kings Landing.  Weirwoods given as royal gifts to all the great houses, then to all the noble estates, then simply sprouting up in the townships and village greens.  And every growing weirwood shows a face that is very like the one on the royal coins.”

His people had become suspicious?  How had he not seen it?  He was the Three-Eyed Raven.  He was the past, the present, and the future.  He had indeed grown lax.

“Maester Samwell found some texts in the Citadel library two years ago that made him question all he thought he knew.  He shared that with his good brother.  Lord Gendry remembered how many times Arya Stark had said that you were so changed you did not seem like her brother at all.”

“Then Ser Brienne had a vision in her last days.  The Warrior came to her, in the form of Jaime Lannister.  He showed her all that you had done, from the day that Brandon Stark was pushed from that tower to keeping Lord Tyrion’s heart problem undetected.  He showed her how Jaime Lannister died.  He showed her why you could not allow her baby to live.  Had her strength not abandoned her, she would have cut you down herself.”

The Three-Eyed Raven had stopped his frequent observations of his oldest, most trusted servants.  They were so reliable, so malleable that he had not found the expenditure of energy necessary when his life force was waning.  That had been an error.

“You know you cannot kill me.  I am the servant of the old gods and I carry their power with me.”

“But you need a willing form to exercise that power.  And there is no one here but you and me.  Even the lowest scullion has been sent from this part of the Keep for the night.  You will find no new vessel here.”

“I will use the weirwoods.  I will travel the kingdoms until I find a new form to accept the power that I offer.”  His voice was weakening and his eyesight, _all_ his sight grew dim.

“Instructions to destroy of the weirwoods in the south has already been sent from the Citadel.  Those ravens should reach their destinations soon.  You cannot, you will not draw power from the trees, but just to be sure…”

Ser Podrick drew Oathkeeper from the scabbard at his side.  “When Lady Ser Brienne gave me this sword, she charged me to use it for this purpose.  This is Valyrian steel, forged by enchantments as powerful as your own.  Sam Tarly suspects that the magic contained in it could end you here and now just as a Valyrian blade ended the Night King.  And even if it does not, it will end the life of Bran Stark’s body and send you weakened and fleeing back to the far north, to the shelter of your trees and your gods.  How long do you think it will take you to rebuild your power, Three-Eyed Raven?  How long before you can begin another conquest of the realms of men?”

“If you strike me down, they will kill you.  My Kingsguard will end your life.”

“I doubt it.  Who have you allowed to choose the men of your Kingsguard these many years?  They are loyal to me and to the memory of Ser Brienne.  You are merely the body we order them to protect.  None among them loves you.  None among them even fears you anymore.  Lord Gendry is waiting just outside the city for my signal.  I will likely spend some time in the cells until a new king can be chosen and pronounce sentence on me.  You have admirably set up the Baratheon line to be next on the throne.  It was fear for his grandson that brought Lord Gendry to our plot.  When he becomes King Gendry he will pardon me and Westeros will gain a new Kingslayer.  It’s a name I’ll wear with pride.”

How had his plans gone so wrong?  He was more powerful than any single being on the planet.  Yet it seemed he was not more powerful than the love and loyalty between friends.

Ser Podrick raised Oathkeeper and then sank it into the Three-Eyed Raven chest.  As the last light dimmed and he felt his consciousness being released into a vast and unformed void, the Three-Eyed Raven heard one last remark whispered in his ear.

“When you see your friend Night King in hell, tell him Podrick Payne sends his regards.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to rant now. 
> 
> One of my big complaints, as the series went on and the child actors matured, is that there was no concept of the passage of time.  Back in the very first episode Robert Baratheon says they were a month on the King’s Road getting to Winterfell.  (I guess D&D “kinda forgot” that.)  Even a single person traveling alone on horseback couldn’t have shaved much time off that since horses and riders have to rest and eat.  And it’s freakin’ winter at the end of season 6.  The Citadel said so.  Armies need to be provisioned and organized before they can move out even if they could travel faster than a royal caravan if the road conditions were good.  In snow and ice above the Neck, not so much.  Jaime took long enough getting to and from Highgarden that Cersei could be confirmed as being pregnant, probably two months.  But she isn’t showing enough for Euron to notice when they first have sex?  Though people have been back and forth from Winterfell a couple of times and Euron has sailed all the way to Casterly Rock and back?  Then, before Missandei’s execution, it’s been long enough again for her to tell Euron it’s his kid. (At least another month, I’d think.  Even Euron isn’t dumb enough to think she’d be able to tell within a few days.)  Really stretching credulity, Cersei’s got to be minimum six months along by then, yet she’s still barely showing?  I tried to address some of that as Bran messing with the other character’s perception of time passing.  (Gendry’s four-minute marathon back to the wall, the light-speed raven to Dragonstone and Dany’s turbo-charged dragon flight to save the men in Beyond the Wall is past hope and only deserving of eye rolling.)


End file.
